Monday 2 December 2013

Requested: Coley's Goodbye Brains from the UK of 1972




A testament to the politics of our time, perhaps? 
In which a rotund and balloon-animal-like mayor can smoke crack 'maybe in one my drunken stupors' and retain a popularity rating of 40 percent among the presumably non-alcoholic population?  Denying to the press that he sexually harassed (by making cunnilungus comments) a female staffer by reporting he has an all-you-can-eat buffet already at home?  After being fired as football coach, losing his weekly radio show, being surveilled by police getting drunk in a van on high school property and peeing in the bushes, getting stripped of all his powers by city council, stuck in his home country and unable to travel, why, he said, should he resign?  No, why would any politician resign after that string of successes, momentarily making his city world-famous and late-night-comic ubiquitous?  After all, Marion Barry was caught smoking crack and went to jail, and was re-elected! 

But long after the furor dies down those poor Torontonians will still behold their mayor on their epidermis like a shingles rash, painful, ugly, and impossible to be rid of with topical emollients -- like so many other politicians out there in the world today parasitizing their poor quarter-unemployed populace with autocratic self-absorption and rapacious appetites under the eternal guise of a demagogue's ineffectual promise of cutting bureaucracies and taxes, like those flies who lay eggs in crickets and whose larvae feed on the insides of the insects starting with the least essential organs first such as the nervous system until every part is eaten and they break out of a dead and all-consumed shell of a cricket to find another prey...

Not my rip.  Some info can be found here.  Tom H. of course has already given it a well-deserved priority 2.  His review, unlike Rob Ford and so many other politicians in your respective home countries, is right on the money:

"A very crazy, and creative, horn rock band with a strong jazzy progressive feel. Some great wah wah fuzz guitar and fuzz bass which plays well against the trumpet/flugelhorn and saxophone. Some weird narration and flute passages. Much more complex than your average horn rock band - in the McLuhan and Probe 10 higher echelon of the genre. There's a couple of missteps like the country rock song and the final narrative piece, but overall this one is a winner and would love to see on CD."

Just a little minor adjustment to what he said in my own terms.  I don't think it's fair to call it a horn rock band because this recalls BST or Chicago, in fact, this is mostly instrumental music like Tony Campo's masterpiece Garuda, it's like the funkiest library record you can imagine being launched into an outer space of progressiveness (thanks to a billionaire internet titan's private rocket launch perhaps) with the craziest horn riffs you've ever heard on the backs of wah-wah guitar 7th chords plus flatted 10ths, such as here on the title track, Goodbye Brains, courtesy internet archive (which is, like sex with unknown females, as free as it is unattractive):




A highly enjoyable album altogether, and very much recommended. How did those guys back then write such fantastic music? I do enjoy the prose poem track about the old lady who urinates on herself while walking down the street-- OK it's not Gaspard de la nuit by Aloysius Bertrand, but have a listen to it and appreciate the literary value. The kind of track you will never hear on a CD made today.

15 comments:

  1. http://www.sendspace.com/file/hkj091

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  2. At least Toronto's leadership has crack and alcohol as an excuse for bad behavior. Here in the U.S., we have a president who in five years has:

    - Increased the federal deficit to $17 trillion.
    - Destroyed our healthcare system; now, instead of Canadians coming to America for healthcare, we'll be lining up to go to Canada.
    - Made America the weakest of world powers; there's the latest treaty with Iran, which will allow the crazies in that country to continue developing nuclear capabilities, the Putin-brokered agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, which allows Assad to continue killing his people, the Edward Snowden affair, and so much more.
    - Crippled our economy with new regulations; in spite of trillions in Keynesian stimulus and quantitative easing, the economy has been growing at a rate of less than 2% a year, compared with average growth of 3.3% a year pre-Obama.
    - Done nothing about unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Social Security and pensions for government employees. Unfunded liabilities are approaching $100 trillion!!!!
    - Lied repeatedly to the American public ("You can keep your health plan" is just one example).
    He's incompetent, he's arrogant and he doesn't smoke crack ... at least not that we know of.

    Rob Ford's approval rating is around 40%. Pretty close to Obama's. Is anyone paying attention?

    Chicopee

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  3. Sir, you are talking about a man who actually received the priceless million-dollar Nobel Peace Prize for -- uh for -- uh... what the heck did he get it for anyways?

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  4. True, he's right up there with Yassar Arafat in his hard work and diligence in spreading peace throughout the world.

    Chicopee

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  5. hey wasn't Yassar poisoned with something radioactive? lol

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  6. yes, I know, can you believe it?

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  7. To be honest i cant believe man how did you find them in one day.I guess you have too many rare albums in your library.so special motion.your blog is fantastic ,i follow your blog every day,and i expect more rare treasures.prog rock jazz psych kraut styles....KEEP UP my friend.. have a nice month!!!

    Last request-->http://www.discogs.com/Zoom-Zoom-Thin-Else/release/1464170

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  8. and I have too much extra time on my hands to look around for those old files.. lol
    zoomthin else tomorrow

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  9. Id thought this album was from Australia when I got it, perhaps not i see :)

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  10. Sadly when I was burgled in April 1992 in Canterbury, this amazing album Goodbye Brains was on the turn table. I was bereft and angry! It was a rare gift from my saxaphone teacher,Barry Cole !RIP Barry. You were so unique and inspiring. I must do your teaching justce and get my old saxaphone out but fear I would struggle to play it now as I tried to in my lessons with Barry in HerneBay at theMTA in William Street 35 o 38 years ago in my mid to ate teens. Th poet reciting his poet was Paul Bura,Kent Poet and a beautiful man, he had a shop on the corner of William Street where he sold his books. One which spqrings to mind is called "Space between the syllables " , by Paul Bura.He was Barry Cole's,Coley's, brother in law of Barry's wonderfully warm wife, Josephine Cole, Josey. I still bump into their daughter, Alex who teaches yoga and relaxation. She tells me I taught her Kumbaya on the piano downstairs, when she was a child. Nice to be remembered!They were all great characters there at the MTA as was his colleague Morris Memott, a brilliantly crazy, talented violinist and pianist, I believe. Played electric violin in his local band,Smack Alley. I miss them all. I only know of Barry's death but had seen him performing a few years before and he was still improvising so creatively. He used to play with Tony Coe at Groombridge Place, near Canterbury, where I last saw him there years ago.I have not been able to get hold of ths album since it was stolen along with Back Door ,Vienna Breakdown which he either gave to me or I bought at the MTA. I know he gave me one and I believe it was Goodbye Brains .

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  11. Vienna Breakdown on an album with a track of that title , by Back Door , a Northern,raw jazz funk group. Well worth listening to this.Like nothing I have ever heard before but discovered it 38 years ago and still love it though I do not ave it anymore. Find it on You Tube still.

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